3 Scope and Structure of the AHDS

This section discusses the scope of an Arts and Humanities Data Service, in terms of the disciplines and data types to be supported, and the community of users served. This is followed by a description of the proposed constitution and organization of the AHDS, and a detailed discussion of its functions.

3.1 Disciplines and data types

The subject areas constituting the Humanities are potentially very large and diverse. They include the study of all languages, both individually and as linguistic systems, from all periods (modern, medieval and classical); they also include the study of an equally wide spread of literatures, as well as many other art forms, visual and plastic, performing and creative. The Historical disciplines are at least as wide-ranging in their scope as the literary or linguistic ones, including all forms of historical text, data set, artefact and social structure. Any workable definition of the Humanities must also include such topics as theology, philosophy, religious studies, archaeology, art history, anthropology, social and political studies. Eventually, even purely scientific data sets become of interest to the historian of science.

There are many areas of overlap both within the Humanities, and between the Humanities and other disciplines, particularly but not exclusively the Social Sciences. The disciplines most involved would include History, Political Studies, Linguistics, Anthropology, Archaeology, and Geography. In terms of the kind of services under discussion therefore, the question of service overlap (and collaboration) must be addressed, especially with respect to services already funded by the various scientific research councils. For example, ESRC funds the ESRC Data Archive at Essex, MIDAS at Manchester, and NOMIS at Durham. Similar services in other disciplines are funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPRC), the National Environmental Research Council (NERC), the Royal Commission for Historical Monuments (RCHME), English Heritage etc.

As well as a richness and variety of disciplines, resources of interest to the Humanities are characterized by richness and variety of data types. At least the following may be identified:

texts in all languages and orthographies, of all times;
still images (bi-level bitmap, colour bitmap, three- dimensional);
sounds (both naturally occurring recorded sound and synthesized digital information intended to be played as sound);
moving images (with or without sound, two or three- dimensional, colour or monochrome);
numerical data, both scalar (e.g. survey results) and vector (e.g. pictorial);
symbolic data, for example describing musical scores;
multimedia, which could include all of the above.

Some disciplines are primarily text-based, and others artefact- image-, or sound-based; all, however, typically combine resources of all kinds. The need to share expertise in the management of different data types across disciplines is correspondingly important.

3.2 The AHDS Community

The primary community served by the AHDS may be defined as comprising all institutions and individuals engaged in research or teaching in higher education in the UK, within any of the humanities disciplines as described above, and producing or using electronic materials of any type (as described above).

Although the emphasis must be on creating an infrastructure to serve the needs of this community, this can be done effectively only by collaborating actively with projects and institutions in wider Europe, North America and beyond. At a practical level this will have implications for the Catalogue and Gateway services of AHDS, and for the initial Service Providers. The opportunity to pursue formal organizational relationships and joint projects is of considerable importance.

In the same way, it is important to ensure that the community served by the AHDS can readily be extended to the wider UK community. Contacts with Local History associations, for example, have been found a productive source of expertise for the History Data Unit at the Essex Archive. [See note 31] As free access to networked resources becomes less and less a prerogative of the academic world, the AHDS must be ready to provide its services to a wider public. The funding implications of this potentially enormous explosion in demand have yet to be thought through but it is clear that the AHDS will have a central role to play in establishing policy and procedures by which Arts and Humanities data services may be provided to other education sectors (in particular secondary education) and to the general public, for example in public libraries. [See note 32]

3.3 Organization of the AHDS

The proposed Arts and Humanities Data Service comprises a centralized infrastructure, which acts as a framework within which a number of Service Providers support a wide range of Services.

The infrastructure will consist of a Management Committee, an Executive and a Service Providers Forum. The AHDS Management Committee will have the overall responsibility for the service. The AHDS Executive will be responsible for implementing the decisions of the Management Committee and, together with the Service Providers Forum, for formulating policy proposals for its consideration.

It is envisaged that initially the infrastructure will support a small number of Service Providers, each offering a wide range of services, and managing a number of data sets. The flexibility of the proposed structure means that in due course these may be joined by further full Service Providers and/or more specialized ``Affiliated'' Service Providers. The latter will typically provide services in relation to a single activity or data set, e.g. a specialist collection. It is anticipated that central funding will be made available to establish the service initially, but the proposed structure does not depend on any particular funding model.

The AHDS infrastructure has both strategic and operational functions, and the Executive will be responsible to the Management Committee for the proper performance of both function types. For convenience, the strategic functions are discussed in section 3.5 Strategic Functions of the Infrastructure , separately from operational functions, which are discussed in section 3.6 Operational Functions of the Infrastructure .

3.4 AHDS Constitution and Procedures

This section proposes an outline Constitution and set of Working Procedures for the AHDS.

As outlined in Section 3.3 Organization of the ahds above, the AHDS will comprise:

a Management Committee;
an Executive;
a number of Service Providers contracted to supply specified Services;
a number of additional Services, each provided by an Affiliated Service Provider;
a Service Providers Forum.

The AHDS Management Committee will be responsible to the funding councils (via the JISC) for the creation and operation of AHDS. In consultation with the Service Providers Forum, the AHDS Executive will also formulate policy recommendations for the Management Committee. The AHDS Executive and the Service Providers will be responsible for implementation of the approved policies.

The basis of funding proposed for the AHDS is a rolling contract, of between 3 and 5 years, with a periodic mid-cycle review.

3.4.1 AHDS Management Committee

The Management Committee will be nominated (by the JISC or one of its sub-committees), with the recommendation that one third of the members are nominated by the British Academy on the advice of its Humanities Research Board (HRB).

The Management Committee will be responsible to JISC for the AHDS, and will be responsible for receipt and disbursement of funds, and for ensuring the provision of the services to the proper standards. It will decide the policies of the AHDS, including the component services to be provided.

The Management Committee will normally meet twice a year, to receive reports and policy proposals from the AHDS Executive.

3.4.2 AHDS Executive

The Executive will consist of a full-time AHDS Director and a small number of full- or part-time support staff covering both the central technical and administrative aspects of the Executive's work. The exact composition and structure of the Executive should be the subject of bidding, but a number of important functions are identified below.

For practical reasons, the Executive should be established within some suitable host institution. The relationship of the Executive to its host institution will need to be specified, but the host would be expected to provide considerable institutional support.

The functions of the Executive will be:

to service the AHDS Management Committee by preparing the papers for its meetings, communicating its decisions, and dealing with its other formal correspondence;
to administer the service contracts entered into between the Management Committee and the Service Providers;
to maintain close contact with the Service Providers, to provide technical support where possible, and to act as a focal point for information gathering and exchange within the component services of AHDS;
to convene and service the meetings of the AHDS Service Providers Forum;
to maintain contact with international institutions, in particular those in the European Union and in North America, who are engaged in activities relevant to the AHDS;
to carry out the day-to-day operational functions of the AHDS, including:
- preparation and distribution of AHDS publications;
- arranging workshops and conferences and other events to provide information and training within the AHDS community;
- operation of a help desk, to provide technical and operational advice to Service Providers in relation to AHDS policies, and to provide general information to the AHDS community.

3.4.3 Service Providers

Each Service Provider will be established on the basis of a contract from the AHDS Management Committee to supply one or more services to specified levels. Each Service Provider will have a Director or Manager who will be responsible to the Management Committee for the delivery of the contracted services.

We distinguish between full service providers and specialist service providers: the former will generally provide the full range of AHDS-standard services; the latter may provide only one such service. The services which may be provided are discussed more fully in section 3.8 Distributed Data Services .

As part of its contract each Service Provider will be required to establish a Specialist Advisory Committee to provide independent guidance and advice. This Committee would normally contain representatives from the relevant academic, library and computing fields.

3.4.4 AHDS Service Providers Forum

The Service Providers Forum (SPF) will consist of one representative from each Service Provider. The Forum may co-opt additional members as considered appropriate. Meetings of the Forum will be convened and serviced by the AHDS Executive.

The primary function of the SPF will be to provide a regular context in which Service Providers can meet to discuss matters of common concern, and to collaborate with the AHDS Executive in the formulation of AHDS policy. [See note 33]

To this end the SPF may commission reports, discussion papers and proposals from among its members, or from sub-committees or working parties.

The SPF will normally meet no more than three times a year.

3.4.5 Additional Resources

There are likely to be some non-affiliated institutions wishing to make resources available to the AHDS Community, but unable to meet any level of the standards required of AHDS Service Providers. Where such resources are considered sufficiently valuable to the AHDS community, they may still be included in AHDS with a minimal level of support. Typically this will mean inclusion in the AHDS Catalogue with associated documentation which shows clearly the respects in which the resources fail to meet the normal AHDS standards. Where such resources are particularly valuable, it is likely that high priority would be given to requests for assistance in bringing them up to the appropriate level.

3.5 Strategic Functions of the Infrastructure

The strategic functions of the AHDS will be carried out by the Executive, at the direction of the Management Committee. However, it will be important for the Executive to consult closely with the Service Providers Forum, and for the latter to play a significant role in the development of policy.

One of the primary functions will be to formulate long-term strategic policy with respect to the following fundamental requirements:

initiation and reception of proposals for service provision;
maintenance of appropriate consultation and debate with the AHDS community;
methods of making and implementing policy decisions (for example, on the kinds of service to be supported);
methods of making funding or other recommendations to external funding bodies;
policies on service charges and cost recovery;
policies on raising revenue from external sources, public and commercial.

An essential component of the strategic role will be the development of a framework within which standardized codes of practice may be developed and articulated. Such codes of practice are needed in all the following areas:

data creation, preparation and encoding;

data documentation and description;

creation of catalogue entries;

data preservation; [See note 34]
delivery of services;
access and discovery tools;
service level agreements, including suitable performance indicators;
extension of standards.

At this strategic level the concern will be with the developments of guidelines within which specific standards will be adopted or implemented at the operational level, as further discussed in section 4 Standardization . These guidelines should incorporate a considerable degree of flexibility to allow for different types of data or service, and differing local institutional structures. A ``layered'' approach to the issue of conformance will be taken, for at least the short term, in which suppliers can elect to conform at a specific level. Again, the definition of the exact nature of conformance at a specific level is an operational matter; the principle of layered conformance, and the extent to which it will be supported, is a strategic one.

In line with JISC policy for all the services which it funds, the AHDS will be required to establish evaluation criteria and procedural mechanisms to set in place both initial and continuation funding of Service Providers. It will also need to establish credible performance evaluation and review procedures and indicators.

AHDS policy will be to attempt to establish a framework within which appropriate academic credit can be given for the creation of data sets, both for teaching and research, which conform to AHDS-specified standards, and which will place appropriate emphasis on their documentation, accessibility, and re-usability. Peer review procedures, perhaps external to the AHDS, will be required to assure the academic quality of the data sets. Creating this framework will involve both a close monitoring of the usage of AHDS data services, (inter alia, to ensure proper citation) and promoting greater awareness of the use and potential of electronic resources within the Higher Education community, in co-operation with the British Academy and its Humanities Research Board, as well as the Computers in Teaching Initiative and related initiatives.

In the development of its strategic policy the AHDS will need to work closely with relevant national initiatives and institutions. For example all of the programme areas of the Follett Implementation Group on Information Technology (FIGIT) will be relevant to the AHDS. Liaison with the JISC's Datasets Steering Group will be needed in the development of data acquisition strategies. The British Library has a number of current and planned projects which are pertinent to an AHDS, [See note 35] and it will continue to be major partner in the development of networked information resources and services in the UK.

European and international dimensions will also be important in strategy development. In Europe, one particularly relevant project is InfoServices, a joint initiative in the Netherlands between the National Research Network Service and the National Library to develop a national information service. This project will be addressing many of the same strategic issues, in relation to documentation, standards and resource discovery which are being addressed by FIGIT, and within that framework, by the AHDS.

From the USA, the progress of the Humanities and Arts on the Information Highways: A National Initiative [See note 36] is likely to have a significant impact on the way humanities resources can be interchanged between European and North American institutions.

3.6 Operational Functions of the Infrastructure

The operational functions of the AHDS infrastructure will normally be carried out through the agency of the Executive. However in appropriate cases, some of these functions may be delegated by the Executive to an appropriate sub-committee or contracted out to a Service Provider.

All aspects of AHDS's operational role are covered either specifically or tangentially within FIGIT programme areas, or by other national projects or institutions. Once again, close liaison will be of vital importance if the AHDS is to contribute to and benefit from the ongoing development of a coherent national information structure.

We list below a number of key operational functions for the AHDS infrastructure.

Monitoring of services provided:

assess proposals for new services (ensure appropriate specialist input or peer review);
allocate and review contracts for centrally-funded services (monitor conformance to standards, and quality of service delivery);
agree and review status of locally-funded services;
ensure that unnecessary or inappropriate duplication of services is avoided.

Monitoring of standards applied:
- maintain the AHDS Standards Reference Guide (see section 4 Standardization ).
Liaison with funding bodies.
Collaboration with other data services, Humanities and non- Humanities, in the UK, Europe, N.America, world-wide.
Liaison with network providers (e.g. UKERNA and IETF), and with network service providers, both academic (e.g. BUBL and NISS) and commercial (such as, for example, Bunyip Information Systems [See note 37]).
Negotiation of agreements on Intellectual Property Rights on behalf of the AHDS Community:
- Collect and maintain information on current law and practice on copyrights and IPR;
- Liaison with relevant bodies - e.g. Copyright Licensing Agency, Patents Office;
- Liaison with other interested HE agencies, in order to develop common approaches, and share community resources;
- Liaison with publishers;
- Where relevant, undertaking negotiations with providers of copyright materials;
- Provision of information and advice about IPR to resource creators.
Negotiation of central licensing and charging policies on behalf of the AHDS Community, within the national HE framework:
- Creation and maintenance of template licence agreements covering institutional and third party copyrights, and IPR of data set creators;
- Liaison with other interested HE agencies, including European and N.American bodies;
- Liaison with publishers and other commercial distributors;
- Where relevant, undertaking negotiations with commercial distributors.
Acquisition of core data sets:
- negotiation, purchase or licensing;
- inviting tenders for inclusion in existing service or creation of a new one;
Data set ``adoption agency'':
- identify homeless data sets worthy of preservation;
- invite tenders/award contract for inclusion in existing service or creation of a new one;
Support of AHDS service providers (current and potential):
- preparation and maintenance of on-line documentation on the strategic framework and the operational rules and guidelines of AHDS;
- preparation and maintenance of on-line training materials where appropriate, for example in such areas as codes of practice, copyright, IPR, licensing;
- provision of mechanisms, including on-line services, for responding to questions, dealing with problems, addressing issues.
Promotion of AHDS services:
- preparation of publicity material about the AHDS;
- arranging workshops and seminars to promote awareness and use of electronic resources by humanities scholars and students.
Monitoring of AHDS usage:
- Collection and maintenance of information on AHDS usage;
- Collection and maintenance of information on AHDS users.

3.7 Centrally provided services

Certain services are strategically important to the AHDS as a whole, and should be centrally managed. Chief among these are the Catalogue and the Gateway. There might also be benefit in having a single central Data Vault for the long-term preservation of resources.

3.7.1 AHDS Catalogue

A major AHDS priority should be the creation of a comprehensive on-line catalogue of electronic resources in the Arts and Humanities --- an Arts and Humanities Electronic Resource Catalogue, with extensive and consistent indexes. Careful research is needed to identify the most appropriate mechanisms for gathering the information --- a non-trivial task, and for maintaining it and making it available --- a little less problematic perhaps once the AHDS is established. Some of the information required for this has been acquired, e.g. in recent surveys carried out by the British Academy and the Office for Humanities Communication. However, a great deal of systematic development work will be required.

It is likely that the central catalogue would replicate the catalogues at Service Provider or local institutional level, or would be regularly updated from these sources. However, it would be important to have a single agency within the AHDS charged with the responsibility of maintaining this co-ordinated service.

The Catalogue service provider would naturally have the role of liaison with the library and networking bodies involved in developing standards for resource identification and resource description, and of co-ordinating the AHDS approach to this.

3.7.2 AHDS Gateway

The functions of the Gateway would be to provide a convenient point of access to registered AHDS resources, and also to international and non-humanities resources. In relation to the first of these functions, it would make a lot of sense for the Gateway to be linked to the Catalogue, and there would be strong arguments for the development of the two as a single integrated service.

Going outwards, the primary links from the Gateway would be to other gateway services. In this context the Gateway service provider would have the role of liaison with other gateway providers in the UK, Europe, and elsewhere, and of monitoring developments in this rapidly developing field.

The Gateway service provider should also be very involved in the national and international work to develop resource discovery tools and common user interfaces, and should co-ordinate AHDS activity in this area.

An AHDS Gateway could also, if so desired, be used as a means to control access to AHDS resources, and could even provide a basis for central access charges.

3.7.3 AHDS Data Vault

Consideration should be given to the question of whether it would be more beneficial to have a single ``Arts and Humanities Data Vault'', rather than distributed preservation activities, carried out by each of the Service Providers.

It may be that the expertise required in the area of long-term archiving of data has more to do with technical and preservation issues than with data type or discipline, and that there would be significant economies of scale in establishing a single archival operation for the purposes of the long-term preservation of data sets. The project which the ESRC Data Archive has with the University of London Computing Centre (ULCC) is of interest, with EDA piping data to ULCC's Mass Storage system. The Research Libraries Group's Archival Server Project is also of interest. [See note 38]

3.8 Distributed Data Services

In this section, we discuss in more detail the functions common to AHDS Service Providers. As noted above, not all service providers will necessarily perform all of these data services directly. They will however be expected to demonstrate an ability to support the majority of these functions, either directly or by subcontract, as a pre-requisite when bidding for a service provision contract. (See further section 3.9 Service Provision Contracts .)

3.8.1 Accession of data sets

Under this heading we group such functions as the creation of new data sets and the acquisition of existing but unsupported data sets. In each case this may involve negotiation with IPR holders and other contractual arrangements with data depositors, which should be carried out according to norms defined by current AHDS policies. Where unsupported data sets, possibly of unknown provenance, are acquired, care should be taken that rights are not unwittingly infringed.

Where new data sets are being created, the principles on which they are selected and processed should be specified, and some indication given of the methods of quality assurance to be applied. In particular, individual Service Providers will seek to liaise closely with resource creators to ensure that relevant AHDS standards are applied ab initio. It may also be desirable to provide some degree of AHDS funding for such purposes, and for the AHDS to act pro-actively in facilitating the creation of specific resources where a clear demand has been identified.

Once acquired, data sets must be catalogued locally, and then incorporated within the central catalogue. Again, this should be carried out according to AHDS-defined norms. Cataloguing is a highly specialized (and expensive) task, and it would therefore be reasonable for individual service providers to seek the advice and support of subject specialists, provided that these are aware of AHDS standards. Some aspects of cataloguing require detailed subject expertise which may be more readily available locally. A staged approach may also be appropriate, in which a minimal level of cataloguing detail is provided for use by the central cataloguers, with more detailed information being added later from the local store.

3.8.2 Maintenance and development of data sets

Under this heading we class a number of functions applicable to electronic resources in general, but of particular importance to shared data sets:

maintenance and error correction;
long term security and integrity;
enhancement and conversion;
validation.

These functions apply equally to data resources and their documentation. Service providers will need to specify the level at which the resources provided will conform to AHDS standards and policies with respect to archival storage (for example, how many copies will be kept, the mode of storage, etc.) as well as to the correction of notified errors, the degree of encoding applied, the checking applied to ensure conformance to specific standards, and so forth.

As with cataloguing, long-term storage may be regarded as a specialized task contracted out to specialist agencies. All service providers must however take full responsibility for ensuring that the relevant standards are implemented to AHDS norms.

3.8.3 Data access facilities

Service providers may elect to provide one or more of a range of access facilities, ranging from simple file transfer only to fully interactive on-line browsing and manipulation. In the latter case, adequate documentation and support facilities (discussed in the next section) are particularly important. AHDS standards relating to ``look and feel'' of servqice provision should be applied, where these are defined.

Monitoring and control of access is also essential, for contractual and performance reasons alike. Service providers will be required to produce regular statistics on the use made of their facilities which will feed into the AHDS's own reports, and should form a part of any case made for continued support.

3.8.4 Support facilities

Under this heading, Service Providers will be expected to specify the degree of user training and support provided. This is likely to range widely for different kinds of data and different user communities. Telephone or email queries should be promptly and helpfully answered within defined norms. Introductory guides and tutorials, and specialist workshops or conferences as appropriate, should be organized. In each case, minimal service level agreements must be observed, and quality assurance measures enforced. Evaluation of take-up of the services offered is also a necessary part of service provision.

Because of the variation in user communities, and the corresponding importance of subject-specific knowledge, it is probable that these facilities will be best organized in close collaboration with specialist subject centres such as those offered by existing CTI and TLTP projects. Affiliation with such centres is not, however, a prerequisite for service providers.

3.9 Service Provision Contracts

Service provision should be defined by contracts between the AHDS Executive acting on behalf of its Management Committee, and individual Service Providers. We anticipate only a small number (three or four) of such contracts in the short to medium term, but propose that a mechanism should be defined now to enable a graceful scaling-up of the operation.

In the long term, we suggest that there should be calls for proposals for service provision in specified subject areas, to enable the service to respond easily to changes within the field. These calls should invite bids which will be assessed by peer review, paying particular attention to the following criteria:

existing or demonstrable demand for the resource being offered;

existing expertise and experience or the capacity to develop and manage it;

significant institutional commitment and support;

demonstrable ability to support the full range of data service functions defined in section 3.8 Distributed Data Services .

Bids may request funding for additional equipment or support staff required to provide access to the service from outside the host institution; in principle the host institution will be expected to bear all costs of providing internal access. Funding may also be requested for additional work needed to bring an existing service into line with specified AHDS standards.

Because it is assumed that infrastructure costs will be largely borne by the host institution, bids should also demonstrate that an appropriate level of computing, library, and other relevant support will be available from their host institutions.

We propose that contracts should be awarded for a minimum period of not less than three years, but should be subject to regular review. Full details of the funding model are, however, beyond the scope of the present report.

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